For years, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been trying to make a movie about a ’70s sex scandal involving two Yankees pitchers. Development has been slow going, and the film has been threatened with a lawsuit by one of its real-life subjects. But now The Trade is finally moving forward again, under new director Jay Roach.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that while Affleck and Damon are still producing, they’re no longer starring as originally planned. Hit the jump for the latest updates on this salacious project.

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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck earned worldwide fame and screenwriting Oscars thanks to the film Good Will Hunting. While each has developed his own career in the years since, the possibility of another collaboration between Affleck and Damon has always been a subject of inquiry. Now, only days after Damon announced his intent to direct his first film (an as-yet untitled legal drama he co-wrote with John Krasinski) and Affleck was said to be the chosen director for The Stand, we’ve got word that the two are going to re-team for a new Boston-set picture.

The subject of the film, which Affleck will direct, is recently captured gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger. Whitey Bulger was a prominent member of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang (named for a Somerville, MA neighborhood) starting in the early ’70s, and took control of the gang in ’79. He fled Boston in the mid-’90s and was on the run until this past summer, when he was arrested in Santa Monica. Other producers are putting together their own Whitey Bulger films, so will Affleck and Damon be able to beat them to the screen? Read More »

A few years ago, it seemed like the only time Matt Damon would ever follow his friend Ben Affleck was in an alphabetical list. Both were Oscar-winning screenwriters turned popular leading men but Damon’s choices earned him a much more respectable reputation. However, Affleck has recently become a highly-sought after director and now Damon is hoping to follow his friend into the director’s chair.

It’s been discussed that Damon could direct the baseball wife-swap movieThe Trade but he’s also attached to helmFather Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses. Now Damon has come out and said that he will direct his first movie early next year and that it’ll star John Krasinski, best known for his work on The Office. Is it Father Daughter Time or something else? Read after the break. Read More »

Last time we heard about the film Blackbird, it was calledKin. That was when Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde were cast as “two desperate sibling fugitives (Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde) on the run who subsequently collide with the holiday homecoming of a troubled ex-boxer (Charlie Hunnam).” The film’s name has changed, but that cast remains the same.

Now Kate Mara and Treat Williams have taken roles, playing a father and daughter who factor into the story. Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson are also on board as the parents of Charlie Hunnam’s boxer. That’s a pretty cool parent pairing; in general this is shaping up with quite the strong cast. Stefan Ruzowitzky is directing from a script by Zach Dean, and the film shoots in March in Montreal. [Variety]

After the break, a shortlist for actresses that could end up in The Trade, the film about Yankee baseball players and wife-swapping that is being written by Ben and Casey Affleck. Read More »

Leave it to the guys behind Good Will Hunting to tell one of the most scandalous stories in Yankee history. A few months back, news broke that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon might team up to co-star in The Trade, a film about New York Yankees pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson who, in 1973, swapped both wives and lives. In a recent interview, Affleck said that he and brother Casey Affleck were currently doing a draft of the original script written by Dave Mandel (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm). He and Damon might still star, but no role is certain and Affleck hinted at a possibility that Damon could direct. Hit the jump to hear more about this incredible story and why Damon and the Afflecks, so firmly rooted in Boston lore, would make a movie about their arch rivals. Read More »

I wonder how Yankees fans might feel about a couple of die-hard Red Sox fans working on a film about two ’70s NY Yankees players. And then I wonder how Boston would react to those same two hometown guys donning pinstripes. Ben Affleck is now attached to direct and possibly star in The Trade, a film about the scandal that broke open in 1973 when two Yankees players revealed that they’d swapped wives. Hey, wasn’t this the ‘sexually free’ early ’70s? Shouldn’t whatever happens off the field between consenting adults be fair game?

Regardless, the story made news and now Affleck and Matt Damon, who have both been interested in the project for a while, might shrug into pinstripes to make it happen. Read More »